Tag: pagan music

On how sacred attention is everything

The Pagan choir I lead was working on a new song for Imbolc a few weeks ago, Lisa Thiel’s Imbolc, from the album Circle of the Seasons. It’s a song for Brigid (pronounced Bridjid or Breed) with the following lyrics:

Blessed Bridget comest thou in
Bless this house and all of our kin
Bless this house, and all of our kin
Protect this house and all within

Blessed Bridget come into thy bed
With a gem at thy heart and a crown on thy head
Awaken the fire within our souls
Awaken the fire that makes us whole

Blessed Bridget, queen of the fire
Help us to manifest our desire
May we bring forth all that’s good and fine
May we give birth to our dreams in time

Blessed Bridget comest thou in
Bless this house and all of our kin
From the source of Infinite Light
Kindle the flame of our spirits tonight

There are several different kinds of Pagans in the choir I lead. Some are experienced singers with little experience priestessing, some are experienced priestesses with little experience singing and performing and some are less experienced in either.

However, all are game for an experiment, and Pagan music being a largely oral music tradition, we do a lot of experiments with different ways of arranging and mixing the songs to make them more layered and interesting. However, this most recent experiment was quite powerful.

I paired up the members including myself set us each to sing the song in pairs, at our own speed, as if it was (and is) and invocation of Bridgid.

Myself and one other singer, who is a professional singer, very experienced as a singer but less as a priestess, went into a separate room, grounded and began to sing it, trusting Bridgid to guide us. I asked my partner to sing the song as if she was calling directly to Brigid and invoking the song as a spell. And magic happened. We connected to the energy of the song and inprovised a winding, tight, almost Baltic harmony as we sang the song. I could feel the power of Her flow through both of us an we just followed it.

Encouraged by this success, I went back into the choir room, and we all switched singing partners. My second partner was an experienced priestess whose singing is understandably quite a bit less polished than my first partner. For her my direction to sing the song as an invocation had a quite different flavour. A dedicated and devout priestess, the instruction to sing the song as an invocation to the Goddess Bridgid had the effect of pulling her deeper into the song, making the song real and rich and deep, as if it had been in one dimension before but now was in three. Her tone was better, her volume and tone varied with the meaning of the song, and it had the meaning she brought to it by her devotion. It was transformed by the presence she brought to it.

I think the lesson in this, from Bridgid, Goddess of Bards after all, is that sacred presence makes everything better, and that when songs (and life) mean something and you really attend to that meaning and connection with the sacred, it transforms what you do.

After we finished singing, we thanked and devoked Bridgid, because She was definitely present.

Google ‘prosperity magic’ and you will find a lot of rhyming spells, and information about exactly what herb or stone to pair together with your working. I don’t know whether such things work. That’s not how I do magic.

I own a house in pricey Vancouver, and a successful business, both of which I came by through some freakishly good luck, or as we witches call it, intention and manifesting. Magic works.

Prosperity magic is straightforward and doesn’t need to be complicated.

Successful spell-casting combines a set intention, a symbolic action that reinforces the desired result, a practical feel for what is possible without straining the fabric of the universe too much, and the ability to sense which way the wind is blowing, magically speaking. We set our sail so that the winds of change blow us in roughly the right direction. If we know what the heart of the ideal outcome is, we can tell when we there.

When recruiting help from the energies of the universe, it helps to be realistic. Just like the old truism that you can only have two of the three qualities of fast, good and cheap at once, in magic you can often only have two of specific, fast and easy.

I’ve never found it helpful to be being incredibly specific about details of the things I need. I find it better to be specific only about those things that are truly critical. Maybe I just enjoy being surprised. Or maybe I have faith in the universe to give me what I need, if not always exactly what I wanted.

There is a kernel, at the heart, that is the most important thing about your goal. Holding fast to that and letting the rest go will help you obtain your goal more quickly and easily. This kernel is short and rings true. It contains nothing optional.

In my life, I’ve made some work choices that have affected my income. I chose to let go of a big client, and am now needing to replace that income. It has created a vacuum to draw in something else, and I’m trying to be mindful about what that is. I’m planning some magic to help bless this process and guide me to where the ideal outcome is.

Which way is the world flowing? Go with it.

When thinking about how to shape a spell, I first look at the time of year and time of month. We are at the harvest time of the year, reaching into the fallow, storytelling and bright community time of the year, the time where we keep one another warm, loved and fed. Fall (we are just past fall equinox at time of writing) is a time for harvest rather than planting. On a lunar level, I sit just before the first of the three days of the full moon, also a time of harvest and fruition.

The way I read it is, this is what way the large solar and lunar tides are flowing, toward harvesting or building upon something I’ve already developed. There is also a theme of that human community that comes in winter – filled with connection, music and story.

Knowing that, I can sort through my goals, not just for ones that fit those patterns, but also for ones that can be seen in that light, even if that’s not the way I normally look at them. Cleaning house, for example, can be seen either as removing mess ( a waning pattern) or creating order (a waxing or increasing pattern), depending on the time of month or year. In this way, many goals can be expressed in a way that suits the prevailing magical ‘weather’.

Know your intention

So what is my intention? To bring in money? To harvest what I have in terms of skills, networks and resources? To harvest a new way of using those skills, networks and resources? All I know is that the answer is to seek something that is already almost ripe, whether I have noticed it before or not. This leads me to the important thing, the statement of intention: my harvest basket is full and I live a life I love. I am holding on to the tiller.

Symbolic Activities

So once the magical climate, and intention are set, the next step is to find a symbolic action that fits and reinforces the intention, in a way in keeping with the weather. This is setting the sail.

Some common symbolic actions that can be done in service of prosperity are along the themes of making space for wealth to flow in, blessing and taking good care of what you have to invite more, and affirming you have plenty, even enough to contribute and give away. Simple actions like mindfully housecleaning, repairing, clearing clutter by giving things away, preparing a good meal and eating it, or dancing, when done with an intention in mind, can be very effective spells in and of themselves.

Allies

Who are your magical allies? Are there specific Gods you connect with for guidance and support? Do you have ancestors who want to see their line prosper? Ancestors with relevant skills, qualities or experience? Or are the broad forces of nature your main allies – Mother Earth who feeds you, Mother Ocean who connects you, the force of Life that flows through you? Allies can be involved in many ways – the traditional prayer as supplication or asking for blessing and guidance, and if possible, a little push in the right direction.

Putting it all together

Magic doesn’t have to be complicated. I scale the level of ritual to what feels right. If the task feels very important and formal, I will do a full ritual with grounding, calling and casting. If I don’t have the energy for that or it doesn’t fit, I may go as simple as a symbolic action, such as cleaning my house while saying a chant out loud or in my head. I may plant a healthy, unlikely-to-fail plant outside my front path, light a candle with my intention written on it, or sing a blessing every time I climb the stairs (as I did when manifesting the down payment for the house I now live in).

Red Stag in grass

In the current example, I will call on the force of Life, who I envision as a sacred Stag, and the force of Love, who I see and feel in many ways. I ask them to bless my harvest, to help me find and complete opportunities to fill my harvest basket. I will notice and celebrate everything that now comes to me, seeing it as evidence my spell is working and expressing gratitude.

Because creating music is what I love, I wrote and will sing a chant (read lyrics and hear recording below). The actual spell is still taking shape. Here’s what I have so far: singing combined with a action. That action will be listing and pursuing all existing talents, connections and resources in a spirit of harvest and then welcoming and celebrating everything that comes. Stay tuned for part 2 for how that takes shape.

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Life and Love
Overflowing
filled to brimming
warm and fed
Life and Love
is the harvest
I dance to where I’m led.

Life and love
Wit and Wisdom
web and wonder
wild and tame
basket full
a horn of plenty
harvest time is here.